Conviction for pit-bull attack affirmed

The conviction of Deanna Hilda Large for involuntary manslaughter because she recklessly allowed dangerous dogs to run at large might have been a first, but the Virginia Court of Appeals saw it as little more than a routine sufficiency-of-the-evidence case.

Large contended that the prosecution failed to prove that she knew that the dogs were dangerous or that she owned two of the three pit bulls that attacked and killed 86-year-old Dorothy Sullivan and her pet Shih Tzu, Buttons, in Spotsylvania County in March 2005.

In the unpublished opinion, Large v. Commonwealth, issued Tuesday, Judge Jean Harrison Clements detailed the testimony of several witnesses who connected the dogs to Large at the time of Sullivan’s death and in earlier attacks on animals and aggressiveness toward people. “[F]from this evidence, the jury could properly conclude that appellant knew or should have known her dogs were dangerous,” Clements wrote.